The Weetwood Skirt + Tutorial

I needed a new skirt for the local race day, and because I'm me I decided I wanted to make a skirt.  I fell in love with the skirt on the Blake Dress by Mingo and Grace!  The only problem was that it's a kids dress pattern and there is no way it would have fitted me!  I also loved how it was made out of neoprene.  It just so happens that Scuba Knit is my favourite fabric at the moment.

Anyway I rummaged through the remanent bin at my local Spotlight (more details to come in another post!) and scored with 1m of peach and .4m of navy scuba knit for $2/m!

 

This was the result!  Please excuse the stuff in the background, I'm still only half unpacked! I used inverted box pleats to give the volume, which thankfully looks good when worn high enough on the waist!  I've included a little tutorial below, though I didn't take photos through the process, leave a comment below and I'll answer and questions :)

 

I used 1.4m of fabric to make this skirt however that has made it quite long and you could certainly get away with less, somewhere about 1.1/1.2 would be my recommendation.

 

To start with I cut a 6"xWOF strip of the peach fabric to use as my waist band.  I then cut this about 5cm shorter than my wait measurement because the scuba knit has a lovely stretch.  if you were not using a stretch fabric add enough onto your waist measurement to insert a zipper.

 

I then cut the navy and remaining peach fabric in half and stitched them along the WOF.  

 

Here is where it gets a little tricky!  I then lay my waist band on the floor folded in half, so it was half my waist measurement, and lay one set of the now striped fabric below it.  I found the centre of skirt bottom and created an inversed 6" box pleat (so that a 3" pleat was on either side of the centre).  I knew I wanted 3 pleats on the front and the back of the skirt so I measured the waist band and worked out I could fit 1 5" inverted box pleat on each side of the centre pleat so that was what I did.  I then tacked the pleats in place.  Make sure you have multiple pins in all your pleats so they don't move when you tack them :)

 

I repeated the same process for the back of the skirt.

 

In all honesty the easiest way to do this would be to divide your 1/2 waist measurement by 3 and take a little off each measurement to work out the size of your pleats :) But why would you do things the easy way!

 

Note that you might need to trim some fabric of the width so that it fits on the waist band.  If you're having the opposite issues (too much waist band) make your pleats smaller, those box pleats eat fabric!

 

I then stitched up the side of my skirt and added the waist band (folded in half so it measured 3").

 

Hem as normal.

 

Then slip on and enjoy your new Weetwood Skirt!

 

I'm trying to work out if I want to cut a bit of length off my skirt as it reminds me of my winter skirts from school!  I'll see how it goes. I think I'll make another one soon enough and when I do I'll make sure to take some photos to add here. 

 

If you make one I'd love to see some photos!  Either comment below or email me at emma@ahandstitchedlife.com.   You can also use the hashtag #ahandstitchedlife on social media :)

 

Emma :)

 

 



Ice Cream Pleated Playsuit

I love sewing little girl things, as I've said before I don't really have many to sew for. I saw one of my adopted nieces over Easter, and even through she HATES dresses and skirts I decided I had to sew something for her.

 

I discovered the Pleated Playsuit pattern by Elegance & Elephants and knew it was the prefect thing to make.  The best bit is that the pattern is free AND has sizes from 18 months all the way up to 9 years!  AND Long and short versions!  Talk about awesome!  I made the long version because that's what was requested :).

The pattern was simple and easy to follow.  My only thing would be that I would recommend printing two copies as the lining of the bodice is printed on the bodice piece. 

 

I made it out of a Ice Cream Lisette Poplin from Spotlight and the straps & lining are a DS Quilts print also from Spotlight. Both of which I'd been hoarding keeping, waiting for the perfect project.

The waist is sinched in with elastic to give it some definition but still be easy to get on and off.

 

The pleat in the front bodice adds a nice little bit of interest to the bodice, though if I make the pattern out of printed fabric again I might leave it out, I think the pleat might work best on something like stripes or plain fabric.

 

The toughest part for me was getting the cuffs on the legs, that's simply because I'm not ever really confident in my ability to gather evenly.  I do think I did a pretty good job though :)

Overall it was a super easy pattern to make and I highly recommend it to anyone, in fact I have another two already planned for some sisters!

I'm also linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday (even though it might be Saturday here now :) ).

Emma